Windows Vista Support Ends Today

Today, Microsoft is officially calling it a day on Windows Vista. The ten year old version of Windows has officially reached EOL (End of Life) and if there are any readers who are still using it, it is seriously time to upgrade. EOL means that Microsoft is doing nothing to support the OS any longer. There will be no further security updates or patches and no service packs for the platform. In other words, you are on your own. Microsoft is still maintaining and supporting Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

Windows Vista was codenamed Longhorn and was the first in a series of departures from the traditional look and feel of Windows to that point. It was also the first version of Windows that seriously focused on security with multiple security improvements over Windows XP. It was launched in October 2009 globally.

Criticism of Vista, however, was fast and furious. The biggest complaint most had was the heavy resource requirements the OS had over XP which made it difficult for those running on XP to upgrade. Add to that a serious bug that at one point wiped XP upgraders systems and you had a lot of unhappy people. Restrictions on licensing for Enterprises and a host of DRM included in the platform made it one of the most unpopular versions of Windows. While sales did eventually catch up to Windows XP, it took a long time.

At the time of Windows Vista, ClintonFitch.com (and other writing I was doing) was focused on the Windows ecosystem. Between 2009 and 2011, I’m not sure I ever met anyone who really liked Vista. XP was loved it wasn’t until Windows 7 that I started hearing positives around Windows again.

And as a sidebar, if you haven’t checked out Windows 10, do yourself a favor and do so. It’s really, really good.